


A Better Choice

by laireshi



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Blood Drinking, Devil May Cry 3 (Game), Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 04:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20522150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: "How can this be my future?" Vergil scoffs, but he steps back, flicks V's blood off the Yamato and sheathes her. "A frail human body?"V meets his past in the form of an eighteen-year-old Vergil.





	A Better Choice

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the VerV week on twitter. 
> 
> Notice the "chose not to warn" label--read the end notes if you're worried about that.

Climbing the Qliphoth is an irksome affair, especially considering how V knows for a fact that the tree considers the other part of his being its master, and yet it only recognises him as an intruder and a pest: just one more reminder of the pitiful situation he's found himself in. The last thing he needs is to step into a revolting lift full of human blood that should take him to an upper level of the Qliphoth and step outside into what is decidedly not a part of the demonic tree.

It is, however, a place he remembers; one of the few memories he has that don't immediately connect with nightmares. It's a library, a human one, though in possession of some truly rare grimoires on the topic of Sparda; the one in which Arkham had first approached him.

Or . . . _will_ approach him, V revises his statement once he looks around and finds Vergil standing at a bookshelf, his hand on the Yamato's hilt as he observes V. 

He wasn't aware that he could travel through time while crossing the Qliphoth's branches, but he can't say it's all that surprising, either. It's a tree from the Underworld that grows between realms, why wouldn't it be able to cross the time stream as well?

As to _when_ V has found himself now . . . He has an idea what to do. 

"Worry not," V says to Vergil. "I am not your foe."

Vergil moves faster than V can notice, but he knows himself; he remembers being able to fight and what he attacked like. He raises his cane and manages to block the Yamato's hit, thankful that Vergil hadn't infused her with the power to cut through it.

"Who are you?" Vergil demands. 

V chuckles, pushing away the annoyance at not being recognised in this body that's not like his at all. He slowly wraps his hand around the Yamato's blade (and oh, how he missed touching her at all!), grits his teeth against the pain, and slices his palm open. His blood drips on the blood, and Vergil inhales when the scent hits him. It should be confirmation enough to recognise himself, but instead he reaches for V's hand, uncurls it from around his blade. V lets him and watches with his eyes half-lidded as Vergil licks along the cut on his palm and drinks his blood for a long moment.

The cut doesn't heal, of course it doesn't, but Vergil lets him go, his eyes glowing bright blue for a split moment before he controls himself. 

"_How_," he whispers, mostly to himself. "You're—"

"The opposite of what you want to achieve. Trust me; I am aware."

Vergil who is now standing in front of V is trying so hard to appear in control, but V remembers the storm of emotions inside him, the uncertainty, the pure terror he'd felt when he met Dante again: he'd lost him once and he barely survived; he couldn't lose him again—but he didn't have the strength to protect him either, not yet. 

"How can this be my future?" Vergil scoffs, but he steps back, flicks V's blood off the Yamato and sheathes her. "A frail human body?"

"This is where your decisions lead you."

He's not being fair to himself. He was young, so very young then; he couldn't have foreseen the future. Raising the Temen-Ni-Gru was worth it when he weighed the countless human lives lost in the process against the chance to keep Dante safe. 

(V is supposed to be human, the part of Vergil following a different set of morals, with a conscience the kind that their mother had tried to teach them before Mundus killed her and showed Vergil exactly where the weakness of humanity leads to—but if he found himself in the position to choose between Dante and the world, he wouldn't hesitate at all.)

He can't condemn his younger self, not really, but at the same time it is his actions that eventually led to V ever being born, and he can't help a certain bitterness at the thought. 

He'd made the only decision he could've at that moment when he let himself fall, but V wishes desperately that he had decided to stay with Dante instead, that he'd swallowed his pride this one time.

"Do not misunderstand this," V speaks. "I may look only a few years older than you are, but over twenty years have passed since I stood in your place."

"Why would I trust you?" Vergil asks, but he clearly is intrigued.

"Why wouldn't you?" V asks back. "After all, you _can _only trust yourself."

"Tell me," Vergil orders. 

V rather hoped he'd ask instead of disregarding himself without ever listening, so his lips curl up in a small and secretive smile. "As you wish."

He _is_ the only person who's never lied to himself, and so he tells his younger self it all, doesn't spare him any details. He must make him see the horrors that await him if he doesn't change his path. He doesn't need a better proof than his own existence; Vergil's worst nightmare (V is envious: his nightmares had gotten so much more terrifying since). 

He speaks of Mundus, though his voice shakes when he sets his eyes on the Yamato, perfect and beautiful and whole, and recalls how she was broken; he speaks of Dante who never recognised him and killed him instead; he speaks of how however unwillingly, Dante had set him free. 

He sees the moment it settles in Vergil, the cold awareness that his future brings torture and enslavement that he was too weak to break out of, that he needed Dante's help to overcome. 

He speaks of years he spent in hell, losing battle after battle, his body decaying, defeat and pain his constant companions until he'd stumbled upon a portal to the human realm and reclaimed the Yamato as his.

He speaks of stabbing her through his chest to cast out everything that he hates in himself. 

"I'm not that weak," Vergil snaps. "And I'll never _need_ Dante."

_Ah_, V thinks. _So he was lying to himself, after all._

"I fell, and I lost everything," he whispers. "I _was _you. Make sure that you never become me."

Vergil doesn't have an answer to that.

With one last, long look at the Yamato, V turns to go. He's said his piece; the rest is up to Vergil. 

V will have to trust he's still good at survival. 

He steps around the shelves; finds the Qliphoth's opening still there, as if waiting for him. He walks into it again, the stench of blood assaulting his senses once more.

This time he walks out to an upper branch of Qliphoth the way he'd intended in the first place. He takes a step, another, and then he _can't_ take the third.

He falls to his knees, gasping for breath. He looks at his hands, but his palms are disappearing as he looks: not turning to ashes, succumbing to the corruption and weakness of his body, just . . . ceasing to exist.

Like he'd never stabbed himself with the Yamato. Like he'd never died on Dante's blade. Like he hadn't been torn apart and remade into a mindless servant. Like he'd never fallen.

Like he'd made better choices this time around.

**Author's Note:**

> V manages to change his own past, but it means that he ceases to exist.
> 
> Also, this fic has a [twitter post](https://twitter.com/tonytears/status/1169391992704524289).


End file.
